[jc666]

Originally Posted by Luke Ancy

I doubt anyone will be able to find a copy now, but when this film was being releaed it was getting the full blown Hollywood promo threatment. I can't remember if it was TIME magazine or Newsweek, but one of them did a feature spread. I couldn't believe what they printed when I saw it, but they had a vertical series of screen caps of this scene, sadly stopping before this particular frame but still showing more than enough. Jessica didn't start out topless, King Kong did indeed fondle her by running a finger down her torso pulling her dress down to expose her. I can't be absolutely certian but I honestly think that there was a full nip slip in the final frame published.

Here's the thing though. The excuse the mag used for publishing those photos was to rave about the giant King Kong mechanical hand the special effects people had rigged up for the film. This was obviously before computer animation was routinely used for everything. So Jessica Lange was actually pawed by a mechanical finger on the film set that conveniently pulled her dress down exposing her breast for us. I wonder if that was the plan all along or if the controls wasn't fine enough to prevent Jessica getting partially stripped by an Ape prop, and they just decided not to waste the moment.

I vaguely remember that scene when my family rented this on VHS back when I was maybe 13 (I'm now approaching 40), however Jessica's standard issue late 70's/early-80's completely unnecessary to the plot show scene (see Genevieve Bujold in Coma for the definitive example) made a much bigger impression on me at the time.